In this new edition of Gerhard von Rad's classic work on the Moses traditions, the reader is provided with a more polished text, cross-references to von Rad's other works, an updated bibliography, Scripture index, and a new foreword by Walter Brueggemann. A German Lutheran pastor, University professor and a prolific Old Testament scholar, Gerhard von Rad sought a revival of Old Testament appreciation from a readership disheartened by two world wars. Hanson brings this important work to the present generation in the hopes of provoking the same reaction.

The decision of Cascade Books (U.S.) and James Clarke (UK) to republishMosesby Gerhard von Rad is a most welcome one. Gerhard von Rad is likely the most important Old Testament interpreter of the twentieth century, one whose influence in critical study and in theological exposition continues even now in powerful ways. This little book, first published in 1940 and first translated into English in 1960, is a gem that brings together in quite accessible ways samples von Rad’s daring interpretation and his courageous faith.

In this book von Rad appeals to some of his most important critical studies...

The Old Testament is a very ancient book. Not only that—it took a very long time to write. Many of its great stories were told over and over again and written down at different times. Naturally each age added something of its own, according to its own understanding of the story. This is as true of Moses as it is of other great characters of the Old Testament. Much of what we know of him comes from the writing, not of those who lived at the same time as Moses, but of those who lived in later eras. In...

Several times the one with whom we are here concerned is referred to just as “the man Moses” (Exod 32:1, 23; Num 12:3). Α strangely simple way of speaking of one who, according to the tradition of later times, combined in his own person almost all imaginable honors of religion and state alike. Was he not at the same time priest and leader and prophet and lawgiver and military commander of his people?¹ Yet, alongside all those titles of honor that a grateful posterity bestowed upon him, this simple description also has its importance and its special significance. Moses was...

There was nothing exceptional about Moses in the days before God called him. He had had a wonderful education in Egypt; but the writers of the Bible do not depict him as having been particularly pious; he had become a shepherd, just like any number of other shepherds; the only thing that distinguished him from them was that he had had to flee into the land of Midian, and so had become separated from his own people. Of course it is true that that ill-advised act of violence which laid the Egyptian low (Exod 2:11–12) was in strange fashion...

Research has made it reasonably certain that, after the settlement of the twelve tribes in Canaan, the Ten Commandments had a place of special honor in the great autumn festival, which was known as the Feast of Tabernacles. In this festival the people of Israel entered each year upon a renewal of their relationship with God. As the high peak of the festival the Ten Commandments were ceremonially recited by the priest. And in this solemn act God asserted anew his claim upon the people; the Ten Commandments are the proclamation of his total sovereignty over them.

The Ten Commandments are so important that it was right and natural to concentrate first on them. But actually they form only a small part of that rich collection of laws in which the righteous will of God for the ordering of his people finds expression in the Old Testament. Now at this point we touch one of those areas of the Old Testament in which even the most faithful readers of the Bible find it difficult to feel themselves at home. So before we come to the laws of conduct themselves, we must note a few points that are...

The stories about Moses in the Old Testament form only one part of one great book, which begins with the book of Genesis and runs through to the end of the book of Joshua and the occupation of the land of Canaan by Israel.¹ This book comprises an immense mass of material running from the creation of the world up to Israel’s entry into Canaan; and later it was found to be a matter of sheer practical necessity to break up the one large book into a number of main divisions. Now, if we are to understand the stories about...